“Do you hate me?” He asked, completely heedless of Ziem’s presence. He was leaning on the wall made of scrap metal, and Aura could see sparks flying from his hands even without intention. He was that filled with power as long as Candra was around.
“I want to.” She looked down at the ground, her insides twisting and making her feel sick, which didn’t exactly make the puppies inside of her too happy either. It hadn’t been nearly long enough for her to have a conversation with Orlando or Nick. She’d loved and lost twice, and the wounds were still fresh.
He sighed at her answer, since he knew it wasn’t one she really wanted to give. “I wish you did too. It would make things easier for you.”
Aura was crying quietly when she looked up at him, and though she didn’t want him to see her cry, she couldn’t fight it back as much as she tried. “What do you want from me, Orlando?”
He moved along the fence to be closer to her, but he didn’t try to reach through or touch her at all. “For you to forgive me, maybe. Someday. Not today or tomorrow, but you know, maybe sometime in the next two hundred twenty-four years.”
“One minute I was walking to turn my life completely upside down to be with you, the next I was a prisoner, and the next I had to watch you forget me for her.” She didn’t even look at Candra off in the distance, or even the house. Using her name was even too much. “It was like one minute you loved me and the next it was over. I don’t know how to forgive that.”
“I didn’t forget you.” He leaned heavily on the fence and looked down at the ground. “How are you? With the…pups and all?” He looked up at her halfway, but only at her stomach and a glance toward Ziem instead of the rest of her.
She put her hands on her stomach and stared down at it. “I’m okay.” Aura stared down at her stomach for a moment longer before she finally looked back up at him. Only Ziem knew the truth about her, and often she wondered what Orlando or Nick would say or do if they knew. “Do you think about what it would have been like? For us?”
“It would’ve been perfect.” He said without any hesitation whatsoever. “Exactly the way the world isn’t now.”
Aura cried harder, her tears falling on top of her stomach to the pups that very well could have been his. “Don’t even say that. You’re happier this way.”
“I don’t know that. And neither do you.” It was one of the many loops his mind had gotten stuck in over the months he’d been away from her. “No one ever gets to know what would’ve happened.”
“You don’t know that? You don’t know if you’re happier now than you were with me?” Aura scoffed, since she didn’t believe him for a minute. Even if he sounded genuine.
“The world is different today than it was that nice.” He said honestly, then pushed himself off the fence to put some distance between them. “I’m sorry. You were right. This doesn’t help you.”
She only touched the fence after he let go, and she looked out at him as tears streamed down her face. Their home was just outside the fenceline, by their choice and design. They could protect themselves from just about anything. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” He said without approaching the fence again.
Aura turned away sharply and started walking quickly again, but she didn’t reach out for Ziem because she didn’t want him to think all the horrible things he could be thinking about her at that moment. She didn’t want him to think that she was using him, that she was a horrible person for still loving Orlando, that she was even more horrible for admitting it and crying over him in front of Ziem when she claimed to be his wife. It was an extremely difficult situation, and the last thing she wanted right now was for Ziem to be angry with her.
Ziem stayed behind for a moment to glare at Orlando for making her cry just for being alive, but he’d already gotten into one stupid fight that day. He knew better than to pick that particular fight. Instead he just followed her to her house and walked in after her, locking the door without touching it. He moved to stand in the doorway of the bedroom, not sure if she wanted him around at the moment or not.
“I’m sorry.” She barely muttered out through her tears, her face puffy and red from crying. She was a mess, but she just couldn’t stop crying. “I’m sorry that you had to stand there and watch that. I’m sorry that I put you through so much shit. I’m sorry that you lost your job because of me. I’m sorry that everyone hates us…”
“Aura…” Ziem said quietly as he went to take a seat near the bed. “You loved him. You don’t have to be sorry for that.”
Aura looked up at Ziem and a few more tears slipped down her cheeks. “That’s my problem, isn’t it? Loving people. I loved Nick and I betrayed him. I loved Orlando and he left me. I love you. So what does that mean? What’s going to happen because I love you?”
“Well, they say the third time’s the charm, right? I’m good at charm.”
She reached out for him and slid into his lap and curled into him. “The Gods sent you back to me. I’m convinced of it.”
“I haven’t talked to the Gods much since we were kids. They don’t seem to do much talking back.” He kissed her neck and held her, much more relaxed with her actually in his arms again. “Careful, or you’re gonna rust.” It was an oft-used phrase that Ironborn told their Iron children to stop their tears, but it
